Yesterday, President George Bush turned 61. The Dalai Lama turned 73.

Bush celebrated by going to Camp David.

Via Moderate Voice, Craig Johnston says:

“Two men born on the same day, George Bush and the Dalai Lama.

“One who forgoes all thoughts of self to set the Wheel of the Dharma in motion, dedicates his existence to saving all life from suffering.

“The other, seemingly ethically mute to thoughts of peace and the fortunes of mankind; acts as an axis around which evil conspires.

Karma. Hopefully, what goes around comes around.

[Animated graphic here.]

Many TalkLeft readers will be interested in Unchecked and Unbalanced: Presidential Power in a Time of Terror by Frederick A. O. Schwarz Jr. and Aziz Z. Huq. According to the NY Times review:

[T]he book serves as a valuable compendium and chronicle of the Bush administration’s aggressive efforts to expand the power of the executive branch, providing a detailed account of the unilateral actions it has taken on matters ranging from torture policy to domestic surveillance, and it is necessary reading for anyone interested in how those efforts by the Bush White House have tipped the constitutional system of checks and balances.

Entrapment has typically been the result of lazy police work by officers who find it easier to manufacture offenses than to solve crimes that have already occurred. Now some complain that private entities are playing the entrapment game. Specifically:

A company that sells antipiracy services to major studios and recording firms is being accused by some bloggers of trying to entrap individuals by getting them to download illegal copies of major Hollywood movies.

It's a brilliant (albeit sleazy) idea, if true: encourage the pirating of movies to boost sales of anti-piracy software. Media Defender denies that the story is true, but doesn't have a convincing explanation for the piracy-encouraging website's existence, or for its sudden disappearance after its connection to Media Defender was exposed.

[More importantly, will they vote to remove President Bush from office . . .]

Reacting to Sen. Pete Domenici's new words on Iraq, Harry Reid said:

Senator Domenici is correct to assess that the Administration's war strategy is misguided. But we will not see a much-needed change of course in Iraq until Republicans like Senators Domenici, Lugar and Voinovich are willing to stand up to President Bush. . . . Beginning with the Defense Authorization bill next week, Republicans will have the opportunity to not just say the right things on Iraq, but vote the right way too so that we can bring the responsible end to this war that the American people demand and deserve...."

Iraq votes next week? Who cares, we have an impeachment to dream about . . .

Update [2007-7-6 18:54:31 by Big Tent Democrat]: John Aravosis cares. My new favorite blogger. Sorry digby.

The ACLU responds to the Sixth Circuit's dismissal of its lawsuit over the NSA warrantless electronic monitoring program.

The decision is here (pdf.)

Big Tent Democrat weighs in here. Also check out Think Progress.

I'm busy day-jobbing today.

What are you reading and thinking about today? (Please remember to put any urls in html format because long ones skew the site.)

This brings us to the second enquiry; which is . . . [i]f he has a right, and that right has been violated, do the laws of his country afford him a remedy?

The very essence of civil liberty certainly consists in the right of every individual to claim the protection of the laws, whenever he receives an injury. One of the first duties of government is to afford that protection. The government of the United States has been emphatically termed a government of laws, and not of men. It will certainly cease to deserve this high appellation, if the laws furnish no remedy for the violation of a vested legal right.

-Marbury v. Madison

One of the great ironies of the seminal case Marbury v. Madison is that it provided no remedy to the party, Marbury, whose vested right was deemed by the Court to be violated. Chief Justice Marshall struck down a law passed by Congress which purported to give jursidiction to the Supreme Court over actions such as Marbury's, ruling that the law was unconstitutional.

Today, the United States Circuit Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit, dismissed the ACLU's case against the National Security Agency, which sought the enjoining of the NSA's warrantless surveillance program. The Sixth Circuit ruled that the ACLU lacked standing and thus dismissed the case. More.

There is a lot of media chatter about Rep. John Conyers' decision to hold hearings next week into the use of the Presidential pardon power, including Bush's commutation of Scooter Libby's sentence. TChris wrote earlier about Tony Snow's uninformed reaction. There's also a lot of chatter and criticism about President Clinton's pardon of Marc Rich.

Since the Rich pardon and the congressional hearings about it occurred several years ago, I decided to do a little research. Here's the transcript of the second Congressional hearing into President Clinton's pardon of Marc Rich.

I think it's significant that President Clinton waived executive privilege for the hearing and allowed his aides who participated in the Rich pardon discussion to testify, no holds barred.

Will Bush do the same next week?

More...

Steve Benen says:

I suppose there might be a less compelling argument [in favor of Scooter Libby]than Peretz's out there, but I haven't seen it. I open the floor to nominations.

Here is my nomination:

I feel that [Libby] should not have had to face a perjury trap: the choice between prison for lying, or prison for his role in a set of transactions that the press regards as not merely O.K. but sacrosanct. In fact, if journalists had a more reasonable view about this, the reporters whom Mr. Libby tried to peddle this story to would have said, “Look, outing C.I.A. agents is bad and we are not going to help you do it anonymously.” I bet that today, commuted sentence and all, Mr. Libby wishes they had done just that.

Say huh? Steve, I think I have the winner here.

Via mcjoan, retired General William Odom says:

. . . Congress clearly and indisputably has two powers over the executive: the power of the purse and the power to impeach. Instead of using either, members of congress are wasting their time discussing feckless measures like a bill that "de-authorizes the war in Iraq." That is toothless unless it is matched by a cut-off of funds....

To force him to begin a withdrawal before then, the first step should be to rally the public by providing an honest and candid definition of what "supporting the troops" really means and pointing out who is and who is not supporting our troops at war. The next step should be a flat refusal to appropriate money for to be used in Iraq for anything but withdrawal operations with a clear deadline for completion.

The final step should be to put that president on notice that if [he]ignores this legislative action and tries to extort Congress into providing funds by keeping U.S. forces in peril, impeachment proceedings will proceed in the House of Representatives. Such presidential behavior surely would constitute the "high crime" of squandering the lives of soldiers and Marines for his own personal interest.

In Wingnut World, the following is true:

From the July 5 broadcast of Cox Radio Syndication's The Neal Boortz Show:

BOORTZ: But in the case of Scooter Libby, Scooter Libby and Bill Clinton got sentenced and convicted for exactly the same crime. Can you -- now tell me, why is there so much outrage on the left that Scooter Libby isn't going to have to serve a 30-month jail term, and not a bit of outrage on the left that Bill Clinton didn't even get a 30-month jail term.

CALLER: I don't remember Bill Clinton actually being convicted for perjury.

BOORTZ: I'm sorry, he was.

John Solomon is gunning for the Pulitzer for best coverage of hair styling:

Solomon has run an odd front-page piece on John Edwards selling his house, a bizarre front-page expose on Hillary Clinton's charitable donations, and a sloppy piece on a Nancy Pelosi earmark for a San Francisco waterfront redevelopment project. Yesterday, however, Solomon out did himself, devoting nearly 1,300 words to the "controversy" surrounding John Edwards' haircut.

Enterprise journalism at its best. I must repeat my refrain -- it is not that the Media is biased, it is that it is incompetent.